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Report - Morfa Copper Works Swansea (S, Wales) 12/04/2012

28DL Full Member

Decided to have a snoop around today as id not been into this site and not seen a report on it. Theres not much to show really so il only include a few photos. This site was of specific interest to me as my grandad worked there as a young man on the locomotives delivering fuels to the site.

Here lies the remains of the Hafod Copper Works of Vivian & Sons, Grade II listed buildings. Two buildings exist on this site and a lone stack chimney. In its day it was one of the largest and most up to date industrial enterprises in Europe and by the 1840s Vivian & Sons were the largest exporters of finished copper in the UK.

British Copper Manufacturers owned the combined works from 1924 until 1928, when they were taken over by ICI, although the refining of copper had ended around 1924. The site was taken over by Yorkshire Imperial Metals, an amalgamation of I.C.I and Yorkshire Metals in 1957, the two works worked as one until closure in August 1980.

The buildings, Musgrave on left, Vivian on right and circuilar stack

Musgrave engine house (sorry about angle, lots of overgrowth)

The John Musgrave 650 hp steam engine

And how it looked in 1970

The rollers it wouldhave turned

The Vivian engine room.

Inside. pretty bare and stripped out... :-(

Finaly, the lonely stack, also grade 2 listed.

Further on with the history and conservation of the site, Another Musgrave uniflow steam engine driving a crankshaft mounted dynamo, a very important engine, was lost because of the existence of the larger and earlier Musgrave that was meant to be preserved at the Morfa site. Here is the other Musgrave in Abercarn Tin Plate Works. Photo courtesy of Chris allen http://www.geograph.org.uk/profile/4264

Thanks for looking.
Got some other places in mind but would rather visit those accompanied....